SXL Linux Hosting Administrator Guide

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1 Getting Started

Linux Control Panel is a web application for managing email accounts, web sites and other hosting services. When you subscribe to our Linux Hosting Service, you will get a Control Panel Password for your company.

To quickly get started, please watch the screencasts on Tutorials section.

1.1 Important Notes

  • Linux Control Panel is a powerful application intended to be used by power users. One can delete your whole company's emails and web site if used in-appropriately. DO NOT tell the Control Panel Password to everybody in your office. Normal users should use WebMail to change their password and other email settings. They do not need Control Panel.
  • DO NOT change or delete records unless you know what you are doing. If in doubt, please print-screen the previous settings before changing it. You may also create a temporary record to play with it before changing the actual record. There is no Undo!!. If you have any questions, please ask us first..
  • Changes may require up to 2 minutes to effective. Since your account are actually hosted on multiple servers, some changes you made on the Control Panel server may require up to 2 minutes to be processed and effect on the target server.

1.2 Basic Concepts

Domain Name
It is the right part of a web address and email address. For example: the domain name of www.sxl.net is "sxl.net"; the domain name of someone@yahoo.com is "yahoo.com".
Host Name
It is the left part of a web address. For example: the host name of "ftp.domain.com" is "ftp"; The host name of "www.sxl.net" is "www".
Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)
It is the full name of a web address. For example "www.yahoo.com" is a FQDN, in which "www" is the Host Name, "yahoo.com" is the domain name.
Server
Server is a computer system (hardware and software) that provide services to users. For example, a Web Server is a system which store and process your web site; An email server is a system which process and store your emails. Each server have one (or more) Host Name or FQDN.

1.3 GO!

go_32.png

GO! is a web page where you will found all applications to manage your hosting account, such as Control Panel, WebMail, FTP, Database etc. For your convenience, please bookmark the GO Page: http://www.sxl.net/go

1.4 Change Password and Language

To change master password and language:

  • Login to Linux Control Panel
  • Go to Tools > Password and Language

Please choose a Very Strong password which is at least 8 characters long and contains upper case and lower case letters, digits and symbols.

The Control Panel has been translated into many languages, but only the English (en) language is 100% complete. Do not change the language unless it is absolutely necessary.

2 Email

The Email section let you manage everything related to email. Normally, all necessary settings should be configured already. All you need to do is to create/delete mailboxes or reset user passwords, all these functions can be found in the Email Mailbox section.

2.1 Domain (Email)

When SXL create your hosting account. Your email domain should also be created. Basically, you don't have to touch anything in this section.

However, if you registered your own domain name from other registrar (not through SXL), and you have configured your DNS and MX record correctly, you may add your domain name here so that our mail server will handle it.

Do not delete the email domain unless you really know what you are doing. Delete the email domain will also delete all mailboxes in the domain.

2.2 Domain Alias

Domain Alias allow you to specify multiple domain names for each mailbox. This is also called Many-to-many Email Forward.

In most cases, if a company have multiple domain name, (for example: domain.com, domain.hk and domain.us), it is convenient to alias these domain together so that each users can receive emails from all of the domains)

Source

  • Specify the source (usually new) domain name. For example: domain.hk

Destination

  • Specify the destination (usually existing, this is where the existing mailboxes are created under) domain name. For example: domain.com

Active

  • Check Active and then click Save to activate the change.

If you have more domain names, repeat the above steps but specify the new domain as the Source.

2.3 Email Mailbox

This is the most commonly used part of the Control Panel. Here you can add/change/delete user mailboxes, reset user password, change mailbox quotas, etc.

2.3.1 Mailbox Settings

Realname

  • Input the user's real name. It is here for your convenience only. Actually, user must set their real name in the email application they use (such as Outlook).

Email

  • Input/change the email alias and choose the right domain (if you have multiple domains)

Password

  • Input/change the password. Users could change their password in WebMail anyway, so you could use a common initial password for your company, and then teach users to change password by themselves.

Password strength

  • We recommend you to choose a Very Strong password

Quota

  • The maximum storage size of the mailbox.

Send copy to

  • You can send a copy of every received email to another address. Just input a full email address (e.g. someone@example.com) or leave it blank to disable it.
  • IMPORTANT: DO NOT forward to Yahoo or Hotmail. They have strict junk filtering rule that if you forward multiple junk mail to them, they will block your whole domain name, or even block our server.

Spamfilter

  • Change the strength of the spam filter, normally you should choose "Normal"

Enable Receiving

  • Enable or Disable the mailbox. If not enabled, every email sent to the mailbox will be bounce back with a message that the mailbox is disabled.

Disable IMAP

  • IMAP is one of the 2 methods to access the mailbox by an email application. IMAP is slower and often result in user leaving a huge amount of emails on the server. However, it is convenience if you want to synchronize emails between multiple devices. You may disable IMAP if you do not want users to use this access method.

Disable POP3

  • POP3 is one of the 2 methods to access the mailbox by an email applicatoin. POP3 is faster and is recommended. Anyway, you may disable this access method if you know what you are doing.

2.3.2 Autoresponder

Here you can add an Auto Repsonder for the mailbox. It is useful if someone is resigned or is on vacation.

Don't forget the check "Enable the autoresponder" for it to active.

2.3.3 Mail Filter

Here you can add filter to the specific mailbox. If you want to add filter to your whole domain, please use Spamfilter Whitelist or Blacklist (discussed later).

Move Spam Emails to Junk directory

  • This setting allow the mail server to move spam emails to the user's "Junk" folder. However, if the user use POP3 to access her mailbox, she will never see the Junk folder. She have to login to web mail (or use IMAP) to see the Junk folder.
  • Emails in Junk folder and Deleted folder (on the server mailbox) will be deleted automatically after 7 days.

Add new Filter

Name

  • Input a name of the filter (for description purpose only).

Source

  • Specify the condition for the filter, for example
    • From - Contains - spammerdomain.com

Action

  • Choose "Move to" or "Delete".
  • If you choose Move to, you have to specify the folder where you want the filtered message to be moved. Standard mailbox contains the following folders
    • Drafts
    • Sent
    • Junk
    • Trash
  • If the user has created her own folder, it can also be specified in the Move to field.

2.4 Email Alias

Email Alias allow you to assign multiple email address to one mailbox. This is also called Many-to-one email forward.

It is useful when you want to assign generic names to a mail box (for example sales@domain.com -> john@domain.com). Or, when someone resigned, you may forward the old user's email address to the new user.

For example: 

Source                             Destination
sales@example.com                  john@example.com
enquiry@example.com                john@example.com
account@example.com                mary@example.com
may-resigned@example.com           mary@example.com

2.5 Email Forward

Email Forward allow to assign one email address to multiple users. This is also called One-to-many email forward.

It is useful when you want to make a distribution list. For example, you could create an everybody@example.com to forward company announcement all users in the company.

It is worth to note that, you should not put more then 50 destination addresses in each record. This is because many email servers will "think" you are sending spam when you send the same email to many users at once. In this case, you have to create multiple forwards (for example: everybody1@example.com, everybody2@example.com, ...) to satisfy your need.

2.6 Email CatchAll

An Catchall address is a mailbox that will catch all emails sent to non-existing mailbox. This is useful to avoid losing email due to mis-spell.

IMPORTANT We DO NOT recommend this feature because it will also catch huge amount of junk mails and viruses.

2.7 Spamfilter Whitelist

The Spamfilter Whitelist let you white list an email address or domain, so that it wouldn't be rejected by our spam filtering system.

Whitelist Settings

User

  • Choose either the whole domain (@example.com) or for individual user

Email

  • Input the email address (xxx@domain.com) to white-list an email address, or input the domain (@example.com) to white-list the whole domain.

Priority

  • If two there are two conflicting whitelist/blacklist, then the one with higher priority win. (Priority 10 is the highest, 1 is lowest).

2.8 Spamfilter Blacklist

Spamfilter Blacklist is the reverse of the Whitelist, it let you block any email addresses (or domain) to your mailbox. See the Spamfilter Whitelist section above.

2.9 Fetchmail

Fetchmail allow you to retrieve your emails from external mail server. It could be useful when you are migrating your mailbox from old ISP to SXL.

Get Mail Settings

Type

  • Choose the type of the mail server

POP3/IMAP Server

  • Input the server address of the mail server.

Username/Password

  • Input the username and password for the mail server.

Delete emails after retrieval

  • Specify whether or not to delete emails on the external mail server. However, if you choose not to delete, you will probably receive duplicated emails.

The fetchmail is schedule to receive your external mail every 5 minutes. Do not forget to stop the fetchmail after you have migrated your mailbox, because it will greatly slow down your mailbox. We may disable fetchmail for your account if we found you abuse this feature.

2.10 Mailbox traffic

The name explained it all, here you will found traffic/bandwidth used by each mailbox.

3 Sites

This is where you can manage anything related to your web site, such as Web, FTP, Database, etc.

3.1 Websites

Here you can add or manage your web site.

3.1.1 Domain

IP-Address

  • Don't change it.

Domain

  • Input your domain name. (example: domain.com)
  • In some special case, you may want to input a sub-domain here (such as www.domain.com) and use a 301 redirect to forward your visitors from domain.com to www.domain.com, this should avoid duplicate content problems in terms of SEO. However, if you don't understand what it means, you probably don't need it.

Harddisk Quota

  • Input the storage limited for your web site. Recommend 100MB for normal web site.

Traffic Quota

  • Input -1 to make it unlimited.

CGI

  • Check this if you need CGI (Perl). This will greatly show down your website and could pose security risk. Check out the CGI section in Apache Documentation before use it.
  • If you use cgi, put your cgi's in /cgi-bin directory, and make it's extension as .cgi or .pl.
  • Recommended setting: OFF

SSI

  • Check this if you need to use SSI. You should name your web page as .shtml to use SSI.
  • WARNING: SSI may cause serious security problem. Check out the SSI section in Apache Documentation before use it.
  • NOTE: You don't need this if you only want to use the include command in PHP.
  • Recommended setting: OFF

Ruby

  • This is for support of Ruby on Rails scripts. Our server currently does not support Ruby, but it is here for future use.
  • Recommended setting: OFF

SuEXEC

  • SuEXEC will run your CGI and SSI scripts as a separated isolated user. This will greatly slow down your web site if enabled.
  • Recommended setting: OFF
    • But, if you use CGI or SSI, turn it on

Own Error-Documents

  • This will allow you to customize your own http error messages (such as 404 or 50x).
  • If you turn this on, then you can edit your own set of error documents in the /web/error folder on your web site. Otherwise, the server will use it's own default error documents.
  • Recommended settings: ON, but don't change anything in /web/error unless you understand what you are doing.

Auto-Subdomain

  • This will automatically assign "www" to your web address. Therefore, both http://example.com and http://www.example.com will go to your web site.
  • Recommended setting: www.

SSL

  • This will enable SSL on your web site. However, it is not going to function unless you purchased a dedicated IP address and installed a SSL Certificate on your web site.
  • Recommended setting: OFF

PHP

  • This will enable PHP on your web site. This will greatly slow down your web site.
  • Recommended setting: Disable
    • But, if your web site require PHP, change it to Fast-CGI.

3.1.2 Redirect

Normally, you don't need to change any settings here.

If you want to create a web-address, but redirect it to another site, use this settings:

  • Redirect type: No flag.
  • Redirect Path: http://www.new-site.com/

Don't forget the http:// prefix and tailing slash / in the redirect path.

If you want to understand the different redirect types (R, L, RL), please read the RewriteRule Directive section in Apache Documentation.

3.1.3 SSL

On this page, you can manage your SSL Certificate for your web site. If you want to use SSL, please contact us, we will help you to setup this page.

3.1.4 Statistics

On this page, you can turn on web-statistics on your web site.

Web statistic username

  • Always "admin"

Web statistic password

  • Input a password (at least 5 characters)

How to use

After you configured statistics and wait 1-2 days (as long as your web site has traffic), your web sites statistic will be available at http://yourdomain.com/stats. Login as "admin" and your password to view the statistic.

AWStats can only produce basic reports. If you want professional reports, please try Google Analytics. GA is free and better but require modification to your web files. Please read the Support section on Google Analytics web site about how to use it or hire us to install it for you at a reasonable cost.

3.2 Sub-domain for website

Normally, you should never touch this section.

If you want to create a new web site at your sub domain address (wiki.domain.com) in addition to your main web site (www.domain.com). You should simply use "Add new website" (under the website section) and input the sub-domain address as the domain name.

If you want to point a sub-domain to a sub-directory in your main web site. For example, redirect wiki.domain.com to www.domain.com/wiki.

In this case, do it like this:

If you want to create a sub-domain under your main web-site's directory, so that both web site can share some files, do it like this:

  • Host: wiki.domain.com
  • Domain: domain.com
  • Redirect Type: R
  • Redirect path: /wiki
  • Active: ON

If you want to understand the different redirect types (R, L, RL), please read the RewriteRule Directive section in Apache Documentation.

3.3 Alias-domain for website

Normally, you should never touch this section.

This is basically the same as Sub-domain for website, but this let you alias different top-level domains, such as domain.com and domain.hk, together.

Please refer to "sub-domain for website" section above on how to do it.

3.4 FTP

In this section, you can create a FTP user, so that you can upload/manage files on your web site.

3.4.1 FTP User

Website

  • Choose your web site.

Username

  • Input your desired user name.
  • Note that, the username will always be prefixed with your account ID, for example "c1", so your username becomes c1xxxxx.

Password / Password strength

  • Input your desired password. We recommend you choose a Very Strong password.

Harddisk-Quota

  • You should simply input -1 here. (it means unlimited). Because your FTP disk quota is limited by your web-site quota anyway.

3.4.2 Options

If you want to limit a FTP user to a certain sub-directory on your web-site, you can do it here.

Note that, the Directory is an absolute path on the server. So, if you want to limited the user to the "web" sub-directory on your web site, you should just add "/web" to the end of the default path. For example: 

/var/www/clients/client1/web1/web

3.4.3 Upload your web site

You may use our WebFTP (http://www.sxl.net/go) application to upload your web files, or use any standard FTP applications (such as Filezilla) to upload your web files.

You should upload your web files to the /web directory. Your "home" page must be named index.html (or index.php if you use PHP).

There is a default index.html file under your /web directory. You can simply delete it or replace it with your own home page.

There are also other directories exist on your web-site, such as cgi-bin, log, ssl ... these directories are required to keep your web site running. DO NOT touch them!

You may change your own error-documents in /web/error if you know what they are. But, please make a backup first.

Your web statistic reports are stored in /web/stats. Normally, you shouldn't touch them. But, if you want to free-up spaces on your web site, you could delete some old reports.

3.5 Database

Here you can create or manage your MySQL database for your web site.

3.5.1 Database Settings

Type

  • Always MySQL

Database name

  • Input your desired database name, note that, your database name will always prefixed by your client ID.

Database user

  • Input your desired user name, note that, your username will always prefixed by your client ID.

Password / Password strength

  • Input your desired password. We recommend a Very Strong password, especially if you want to access your database remotely.

Remote Access

  • your web-site is always on the same server as your database, so you can always use localhost as the hostname in your connection string.
  • If you really need to enable remote access, please make sure you are using a Very Strong password (at least 11 characters, I recommended).
  • Our server is running on the standard port 3306, and we use fail2ban to restrict access, so it should be quite safe as long as your password is strong enough.

3.5.2 Manage your database

You could use our PhpMyAdmin web application to manage your database.

Open http://www.sxl.net/go and click the Linux MySQL Admin icon.

For more information, please read

3.6 Cron Jobs

Our web server allow you to run URL Cron Jobs. Please note, URL jobs only, shell jobs are disabled due to security reason.

For information about cron jobs, please read: man pages

3.7 Statistics

Here you will found traffic and disk usage about your web-site. If you want to see visitors statistics, please refer to the #Statistics section.

4 DNS

This section allow you to add your own domain name to the system. Normally, your domain name should be added already when we create your hosting account.

However, if you registered new domain name somewhere else (not through SXL), you may add your domain here, so that our servers will handle it.

If you register your own domain name, please use the following name servers:

  • h11.hksx.com
  • h12.hksx.com

4.1 Add DNS Zone

This is an easy to use wizard to create DNS zones. Simply input your domain name (example: domain.com) and click [Create DNS Record].

4.2 Zones

Here you can manage your DNS Zone, but normally you should not touch anything here.

4.2.1 DNS Zone

This is the SOA Record, only change it if you know what you are doing.

Update ACL has been disabled in the system (due to security reason). It won't have any effect even you change here.

4.2.2 Records

Here you can add/change/delete your DNS record. Normally, you should not touch anything here.

For example, if you want to create a sub-domain (wiki.domain.com) web-site, you should add a CNAME record like this:

  • Click CNAME
  • Hostname: wiki
  • Target Hostname: www.domain.com
  • TTL: 86400 (don't change)
  • Active: ON

And then, you can create the web site under this sub-domain.

4.3 Secondary Zones

This part shouldn't be used.

However, if you are hosting your own primary DNS server and want to use our servers as your secondary DNS, you may configure it here.

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